Do All Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19 Disease Benefit from Adding Tocilizumab to Glucocorticoids? A Retrospective Cohort Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Treatment guidelines recommend the tocilizumab use in patients with a CRP of >7.5 mg/dL. We aimed to estimate the causal effect of glucocorticoids + tocilizumab on mortality overall and after stratification for PaO₂/FiO₂ ratio and CRP levels.

Methods

This was an observational cohort study of patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. The primary endpoint was day 28 mortality. Survival analysis was conducted to estimate the conditional and average causal effect of glucocorticoids + tocilizumab vs. glucocorticoids alone using Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression models with a time-varying variable for the intervention. The hypothesis of the existence of effect measure modification by CRP and PaO₂/FiO₂ ratio was tested by i

SUBMITTER: Mussini C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9967307 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature